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Thursday, 29 November 2012

I first tasted this dish a few weeks ago when I
volunteered, together with Moishe House and Brondesbury Park Synagogue at
Rumi’s Kitchen, in Cricklewood Mosque. About once a month, a group of people
come together and cook for the homeless. What’s wonderful about it, is that it
isn’t so much about the food, but about creating a sense of community. Much
love to Becky for introducing them to me. See below* for details about Rumi’s
Cave.

I had never worked in an industrial-sized kitchen before,
and absolutely loved it. The pot I was stirring was so big that it went over
four rings on the hob, and the heat was so intense that two of us were stirring
together to keep the celeriac from sticking. The original recipe was chosen by someone
from the synagogue, it is an Ottolenghi dish, served with oniony meatballs.
This recipe here is my adaptation.

In Jerusalem,
Ottolenghi/ Tamimi explain that a sofrtio has its origins in Sephardic Jewish
cooking, and refers a cooking method. Originating from the Spanish verb sofreir (to fry lightly). It involves
slowly cooking meat in a pot on the stovetop with only oil and very little
liquid. The result is a very tender texture and rich, comforting flavour. Turmeric,
garlic and lemon are traditional flavours for this. Although traditionally
associated with meat, it works incredibly well here with just veggies.

Celeriac is a pretty new ingredient for me. I have
never been the biggest fan of root vegetables, but celeriac is brilliant. Every
day on Masterchef Professionals someone seems to be making celeriac puree, so
it can’t just be me. I have made this recipe a few times now, and I really love
it. It’s sunshine-yellow and lemony, and the spices add an incredible warmth. I’ve
added a few potatoes for a little variety in texture – the celeriac becomes
really soft and almost creamy.

Makes
enough for 4-6 as a side dish.

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil

1 celeriac, peeled and cut into approx 5cm x 1.5cm
batons. I intentionally cut some a little small and some a little big, for
different textures.

The
potatoes take a little longer to cook, so start them off cooking before you
peel and chop the celeriac. Heat the oil in a large saucepan/or deep frying pan
and add the potatoes, stirring quite frequently on a medium heat. Add the
celeriac when it is ready, along with the turmeric, fennel seeds and other
spices. Fry these all together for 5-10 minutes, until the spices start
smelling fragrant and the veggies look cooked at the edges. Add the garlic and
fry for another 5 minutes, stirring all the time to prevent it from burning.
Then add the mug of stock, and simmer for at least 20 minutes. As there isn’t
that much liquid, you will need to stir quite regularly to prevent it from
sticking to the bottom (you may need to add a little more liquid, but don’t add
too much).When the potato
quarters have cooked through and the smaller wedges of celeriac have started to
disintegrate and thicken the sauce, season with the lemon, salt and pepper. Goes
very well with thick Greek yogurt or Labneh.

*Rumi’s Cave is a community space
located in the heart of Kilburn in London. It is run by charity, Ulfa Aid as a
way of engaging and reaching out to the community. At Rumi’s Cave, we aim to
create an environment of spirituality, creativity and learning for everyone,
despite race or religion. Their mission
is: Spirituality, Creativity, Education, Community, Charity.

Sunday, 25 November 2012

I
think I could probably write an entire cookbook based on recipes using peanut
butter – seeing how much I get through, maybe Skippy will sponsor one. My love
for peanut butter cups, and probably peanut as ‘sweet’ comes from my first trip
to New York as a conscious foodie aged 14 (all I remember from my trip at the
age of 4 is getting soaked by my cousin Josh at a water fountain outside the
Smithsonian). Reese’s Peanut Butter cups completely changed my world. Coming
home from that trip my suitcase basically consisted of peanut butter cups, some
variations on the theme including cookie and grape jelly, and a pair of Steve
Madden platforms. Well I guess that’s what happens when a 14 year old is in the
US without parental supervision. Speaking of foodie consciousness by the way,
this trip was also the first time that I tried, and fell in love with, both
sushi and aubergines (I had been afraid of them previously). It also put an end
of my refusal to eat red meat. Much much love to all my American family for contributing to this enlightenment.

These peanut butter cups were another one of the chocolates made with T.O.M on our chocolate day a
few weeks ago. The original recipe comes from Nigella Lawson’s How to be a
Domestic Goddess, which I think I count as my favourite book just because of
the title. See evidence of me getting carried away with being a ‘domestic
goddess’ here. T.O.M and I have made this before in its original state, the
peanut butter square, but this time on our chocolate day we were feeling a
little more ambitious.

When
I told a colleague that I was planning on making peanut butter cups, her
response was ‘you know that you can get them in the shops right’? Obviously it
takes a little more time to paint the cupcake cases with melted chocolate, but
it really is worth it. The dark chocolate gives them a bitterness that is a
perfect foil for the sweetness of the peanut filling, and makes them feel a
little more grown-up, and different from Reese’s. See my post on
honeycomb-peanut chocolate bites (also Nigella) for some thoughts on why
salty peanut goes so well with chocolate.

Makes
about 15 cups, more or less depending on how big you make them, obviously.
T.O.M and I made a double batch, from which we made about 18 cups and a big
rectangle of chocolate peanut butter squares.

Big
thanks again to Steven for the tremendous photos

Ingredients

50g muscovado sugar

200g icing sugar

50g unsalted butter or vegan margarine -
softened

200g peanut butter –
crunchy or smooth depending on preference

Make sure that you have
about 400g of dark chocolate, although you probably wont need all of it.

Cupcake cases

First
make the chocolate cases. Melting chocolate can be very temperamental, so I
tend not to melt more than 50-100g at a time. Either use the microwave or a
bowl suspended over a pan of simmering water making sure that no steam or
condensation makes its way into the chocolate, or it will seize. Using a
teaspoon (or a clean paintbrush) coat the base of the cupcake case with melted
chocolate, carefully working the chocolate up the sides to about a third of the
way up. Set the cases aside to firm up.

In
a large bowl, mix together the sugars, butter and peanut butter together. I
know it seems like a scary list of ingredients, but trust me it works – the
muscavado sugar gives a brilliant sandy texture. Use a food processor for this if
you want, it is not the easiest thing to mix by hand.

When
the chocolate cases are hardened, take a small handfuls of the peanut mixture,
roll it into flat-ish circles using your hands, and press them into the cases. Make
sure that the peanut doesn’t come up higher than the edge of the chocolate,
otherwise there will be gaps and cracks in the finished cups.

When
this is done, melt a little more chocolate to cover over the tops. Make sure
that the chocolate is completely hardened before turning them out of the paper
cases – but don’t put them in the fridge.

Monday, 5 November 2012

These are I think the most beautiful things I have ever
made, and would make an excellent gift for Christmas or Chanukah. Apart from my love of Hundertwasser (backgrounds here and on Twitter), my favourite form of visual art is Japanese landscapes paintings,
especially Edo Period. I actually own an original Hiroshige print, probably my
most prized possession. I can (and do) stare at it for hours feeling all happy
and serene. These little chocolates look just like Japanese Cherry Blossom paintings,
and as soon as I saw a photo of them I completely fell in love – the way you
would if you saw your favourite kind of art reproduced in chocolate (unless you
are a big fan of Damien Hirst, or potentially any of the YBAs actually).

Every so often, although not often enough, T.O.M and I get
together and have a chocolate baking day. And we are getting pretty good at it.
We always buy twice as much chocolate as we need, but nowadays we don’t seize
any, we just eat all the leftovers. For the past few months I had been
incubating in my brain some sort of thing involving pink peppercorns and white
chocolate. I couldn’t quite work it out, but I knew that it had to be something
spectacular. Conveniently I had given T.O.M a bag of pink peppercorns recently
and so everything just fell into place. I found this recipe via Google, and as
soon as I saw this one, I knew I had to make it. It is an El Bulli recipe, and
I found it here.

Mendiants isn’t exactly the right kind of name for these,
but I needed to find something better to call them other than ‘thingies’. (From
Wikipedia) A Mendiant is a traditional French confection composed of a
chocolate disk studded with nuts and dried fruits, representing the four
monastic orders of Dominicans (raisins), Augustinians (hazelnut), Franciscans
(fig) and Carmelites (almonds). Not really the most interesting thing I have
ever written on here – but I’m sure it will come up in a pub quiz or on
University Challenge or something. Answers on a postcard, or comment below,
about what Saint, or saintly figure these could represent.

Ingredients

You will need some fennel fronds from the top of a fennel
bulb. We had to go through an entire box of them in Sainsburys to find one
which hadn’t been completely trimmed, and then ended up cheekily picking leaves
off other ones and putting them in the same bag.

With the peppercorns, they need to be lose and not in a
grinder – you only want the pink outer layer – the centre is black and not as
pretty.

With regards to the white chocolate, the Green and Blacks
one is very good as it has tiny flecks of black vanilla running all the way
through it. It is pretty pricey though – we used a third Green and Blacks and
two thirds Sainsburys own brand, and it seemed to work very well.

You will need lots of greaseproof or baking paper, a
chopping board or other flat thing, and a flat bottomed glass.

In order to make these beauties, first carefully clean and
check the fennel fronds – be careful as they are really delicate. Carefully
remove any squashed leaves, dirt and caterpillars. Once dry, pick off miniature
tree-shaped fronds and arrange them on a sheet of greaseproof paper that has
been wrapped around a chopping board or something. Leave quite a lot of space
between them. This is a fiddly job, but the whole point of these is how they
look, so do take the time to do it carefully. Its pretty therapeutic actually.

Once the fennel leaves are in place, arrange a few flakes of
pink peppercorn over each one, trying if possible to get them in the ‘branches’.

Carefully melt the chocolate using a bain-marie or microwave
of you are feeling confident, and using a spoon put a blob over each fennel
leaf-peppercorn arrangement. Take care when doing this, and don’t do it from a
height – you need to make sure that the arrangement doesn’t get distorted or
crushed by the chocolate.

Once this is done, place a second sheet of paper over the
chocolates, and use the glass to gently press each one into a flat circular
disk, encasing the fennel-leaf and pepper flakes into the chocolate ‘like a
fossil’. Leave to set, using the fridge only if you have to.

And there you have it. So easy and so beautiful. I’m thinking of other variations of this – potentially with tarragon. Or maybe in
keeping with the colour theme, some flakes of pink Himalayan salt.

With much love and thanks to T.O.M, and to Steven for being
completely lovely whilst being thrown out of his own kitchen, and taking these
incredible photos.

Saturday, 3 November 2012

Adapted from Plenty.
This salad is one of the nicest things I have made in a while. It is sweet,
refreshing, sharp and spicy. Multi-coloured, and pretty easy to put together
too.

One of the things I love about my community is the pot-lucks.
When I first moved in just over
two years ago, the concept terrified me. As some of you may know, sometimes, I
can be a little tightly-wound – the thought of coming together for a meal
comprising of unknown food was too much to cope with. What if the balance of
carb/ veg/ protein was off? What if there was too much humous? What if there
was Indian and Chinese food? But of course, I was wrong.

At this year’s Grassroots Jews New Year, I was privileged to
be part of a pot-luck with about 200 amazing people. ‘Mmm, who made this’ went
round a lot. This dish came to me through a rumour – someone said, I can’t
remember who, that there was a noodle salad with mangoes and aubergine that I just
had to try. When I saw it I recognised it immediately as being from the
vegetarian cookbook Plenty by Yotam
Ottolenghi. And it was delicious. I’m still not sure who made it, but they
kindly left the recipe, which is now taped to the fridge in the Moishe House.

Cold noodles is one of my favourite things to eat, and so a
week ago I decided to try out this recipe for myself. When I got to the
supermarket though, the new-in-season peaches looked so fantastic that I knew I
needed to use them. I had also just spent what felt a week of my life grilling
aubergines and didn’t really want to cook with them either (you can have too
much of a good thing). So here is my variation of the soba noodles in Plenty,
with peaches and a few other tweaks.

Serves 3-5, as a salad.

Ingredients

100ml rice vinegar

1-2 tsp honey* (more or less, depending on your tastes)

2 tsp soy sauce (likewise)

1 garlic clove, crushed

1 medium sized fresh red chilli, deseeded and finely sliced

1-2 tsp toasted sesame oil

grated zest and juice of 1 lime

250g soba (buckwheat) noodles

2 ripe peaches, stoned and sliced (I like to leave the skin
on for the colour, it also prevents the fruit from disintegrating into the
salad)

1 large handful beansprouts

Toasted broken-up cashews, about ½ a cup

2 spring onions, whites and greens sliced on the diagonal

½ a bunch of fresh coriander, roughly chopped

To make the dressing, warm the rice vinegar with the honey –
I used a microwave. When the honey has melted in and everything is warm, remove
from the heat and add the garlic, chilli, sesame oil and soy sauce.

Cook the noodles according to the packet instructions (my
packet said to cook for 4-6 minutes and I boiled them for 4, but in hindsight I
should have taken them out at 3). Drain them and rinse them under cold water to
halt the cooking process. Shake off the excess water and leave them to dry a
little on a tea towel.

In a large bowl mix the noodles with the dressing and the
rest of the ingredients. If not serving immediately, leave out the coriander
until you are ready to serve, otherwise it will wilt.

*I have labelled this vegan despite the honey, so feel free to use some sugar or agave syrup if you would like to